Homeless hailed as heroes in Manchester attack
MANCHESTER (AFP) — A homeless man begging at the Manchester Arena as the suicide attack went off was being hailed as a hero Tuesday after cradling a dying woman in his arms.
Chris Parker, 33, had been begging in the arena foyer where suicide bomber Salman Abedi detonated his device late Monday, killing 22 people.
Amid the carnage and chaos, he rushed to help victims.
Stephen Jones, 35, who had been sleeping rough near the arena in the northwest English city, also ran to help deal with the gruesome aftermath.
A tearful Parker recounted: “I heard a bang and within a split second I saw a white flash, then smoke and then I heard screaming.
“It knocked me to the floor and then I got up and instead of running away my gut instinct was to run back and try and help,” he told the Press Association news agency.
“There were people lying on the floor everywhere.
“I saw a little girl... she had no legs. I wrapped her in one of the merchandise T-shirts and I said ‘where is your mom and daddy?’ She said: ‘my dad is at work, my mum is up there’.”
Parker said he tended to a woman who died as he tried to comfort her.
“She passed away in my arms. She was in her 60s and said she had been with her family,” Parker said.
Jones, a former bricklayer who has been sleeping rough for more than a year, recalled wiping blood from children’s eyes after dashing to help.
“It was a lot of children with blood all over them, crying and screaming,” he told ITV television.
“We were having to pull nails out of their arms and a couple out of this little girl’s face.”
“Just because I’m homeless, it doesn’t mean I haven’t got a heart,” he said.